Ryan, the only solution is the 50 Lux ASPH or 0.95 Nocti. The 50AA also looks pretty decent in the bokeh department. Unfortunately, other than Adam's trial of it, I don't think anyone here has personal experience with it.

I guess it's all subjective as I don't find the look of the CV that bad. It sits somewhere between the Lux ASPH and pre-ASPH bokeh. By the looks of it a bit closer to the pre-ASPH.

rsolti13 wrote:
I did more playing around with the CV Nokton 50 f/1.5 today.....now I'm starting to change my mind on it. Sharpness is not an issue, but I am finding many areas where the bokeh is just hard to look at. It ruins images. As Adam mentioned above, extremely close up near mfd the oof rendering is quite nice. But once you step back a few feet the background gets beyond busy. See the first two shots below, the first is near mfd, the second is back a couple feet. The third shot is also near mfd, but with a background close to the focal point. I suddenly see a 50 Cron in my future ...Show more →

i'm afraid the 50 cron (non AA) has quite funky bokeh too.

the 50 lux pre-asph might be as sharp as the CV centrally, but it has a lot more glow and is more swirly in bokeh. does anybody have experience with the summarit?

the 50 lux pre-asph might be as sharp as the CV centrally, but it has a lot more glow and is more swirly in bokeh. does anybody have experience with the summarit?

I briefly tried the 50/2.5 Summarit at a Leica store a while ago. At that time I was for some reason more concerned about far distance performance and did a number of infinity shots, etc.. All I did for near distance were these two at about MFD, which is 80cm.

First is sooc but the last two I think have had some tweaks:

Not sure the last one will tell you much, but it's wide open and focused at the near end of the sign at left. Unfortunately I didn't shoot anything in the 1.5-2m range.

Ron, the 21 Lux looks fantastic, but I also like #3 a lot. The older Canon lenses sure are a great bargain. Your 50mm comparison above is excellent. I would assume the new CV would look about the same as what you posted, with maybe a hair less fringing.

Ron, very beautiful dusk sets. Agree with others that the last image from 2nd set is really outstanding.
Rsolti, nice portraits of your daughter, and the last flowers shot is very 3D.
Gary, nice set. Love the dog portrait with shallow DOF.

Ryan, those look good! I guess it's as you say, the lens probably handles best with near subjects and sufficient background separation.

Adam, I regret not experimenting more with the Summarit at that time because I also like the results from it. From the dozen or so images I did, it seems pretty well behaved. The big unknown for me is how it handles 1.5-3m subject distances with varying degrees of background separation. But any lens has bokeh problems at certain distances (other than maybe the 35/2 Sonnar in the RX1 ). During that particular visit to the Leica store, the salesman wanted me to try the 35/2.5 as well, but since I had the ZM35/2.8, wasn't all that interested. He was very enthusiastic about it, and in hindsight, I've seen some nice images from it as well.

Yeah, I was kind of surprised how nicely those 21 Lux shots above worked out. I also did a bunch with the 21 SEM, but they all look a lot more clinical than those from the Lux wide open. The challenge of shooting in that enclosure was that the 'windows' were all covered in screens to keep out the bugs, which of course with digital cameras, especially those without AA filters, resulted in massive moire problems. I had to shoot at either f/16 or try wide open, but if wide open, the plane of focus couldn't be near the screens. Even then there was still some moire to clean up. I think some of it might be RAW converter related and also dependent on actual slider settings. Anyway, it's a challenging shooting environment.

These were from our first day there, just having checked in and it turned out to be about the only sunlight we saw for the remainder of the stay, unfortunately. Knowing the weather might be bad in the coming days, I definitely wanted to take advantage of the last slivers of sunlight...

28 Cron at f/16. Very posed, but still nice IMO :

Canon 50/1.4 LTM. You can see it in Gary's images, and what I like about it is the smooth wash over the images at f/1.4, though details are still pretty sharp with it:

rscheffler wrote:
I briefly tried the 50/2.5 Summarit at a Leica store a while ago. At that time I was for some reason more concerned about far distance performance and did a number of infinity shots, etc.. All I did for near distance were these two at about MFD, which is 80cm.

First is sooc but the last two I think have had some tweaks:

Not sure the last one will tell you much, but it's wide open and focused at the near end of the sign at left. Unfortunately I didn't shoot anything in the 1.5-2m range.

that certainly looks better (bokeh wise) than i would expect any of the non asph 50 crons to do in the same situation. maybe the summarit would be a good choice for bokeh for those who can handle the "slow" speed. that is certainly the case for the 35mm summarit.

Ryan, the only solution is the 50 Lux ASPH or 0.95 Nocti. The 50AA also looks pretty decent in the bokeh department. Unfortunately, other than Adam's trial of it, I don't think anyone here has personal experience with it.

I guess it's all subjective as I don't find the look of the CV that bad. It sits somewhere between the Lux ASPH and pre-ASPH bokeh. By the looks of it a bit closer to the pre-ASPH.

Yes, tried it twice, and was suppose to send photos from the second trial, but got rained on and didn't end up taking any worthwhile photos (SORRY).
I'll try to snag it again for the wedding, although I'll probably be busy trying out a new lens or two that I've recently picked up

This time either way, you'll get some images from me, I'm dying to use the new camera... It's calling to me.

rsolti13 wrote:
Adam, I would agree with a lot of what you say, but the majority of where I have seen the Nokton exhibit 'busy' bokeh where the Lux ASPH would really show its true colors is the first shot above. Busy areas about 10-15 feet behind the subject. When the background is about 20 feet or greater back it is very smooth, see below...shot wide open. BUT, at 1/4th the price of the LUX Asph its a hell of a deal. The sharpness on the focus area is excellent

-------------------------------------

I did more playing around with the CV Nokton 50 f/1.5 today.....now I'm starting to change my mind on it. Sharpness is not an issue, but I am finding many areas where the bokeh is just hard to look at. It ruins images. As Adam mentioned above, extremely close up near mfd the oof rendering is quite nice. But once you step back a few feet the background gets beyond busy. See the first two shots below, the first is near mfd, the second is back a couple feet. The third shot is also near mfd, but with a background close to the focal point. I suddenly see a 50 Cron in my future

Sorry, I didn't mean to plant any seeds. I just had a hard time loving the lens when I owned it. Obviously if you compare it to the 50summilux-asph you're going to be disappointed (but for the price you shouldn't be). I'd sooner take the 50/2 ZM and just make due with a f/2 lens. I find that it's a great lens, and the bokeh is more manageable. If you had the money for a 50APO that'd be the way to go.. The 50cron is to close to the 50 ZM to warrant paying double the price. Although I suppose the same could be said for the 50APO (at that price, it's almost better to buy a noct, if you don't mind the weight).

Planar 50 ZM for the win! I actually really enjoyed it while I had it.. Honestly, I gave it up for a SILLY reason. I thought it looked funny that I was running around with a expensive Leica camera, and a Zeiss lens. So I sold it in favor of a 50cron, and if memory serves, I felt dumb for doing so..

Same thing happened with my 35/2 ZM, I sold it for a 35cron-asph, and really REALLY felt dumb for doing so.

GUYS, quick question. I noticed in the PDF of the Leica manual (M240) it says that once the batt reaches 80% you should unplug it to avoid overcharging... Seriously? Wouldn't the charger have overcharge protection built in? Page 16 of the PDF, or 141 (I'm guessing for the hardcopy).

adamdewilde wrote:
GUYS, quick question. I noticed in the PDF of the Leica manual (M240) it says that once the batt reaches 80% you should unplug it to avoid overcharging... Seriously? Wouldn't the charger have overcharge protection built in? Page 16 of the PDF, or 141 (I'm guessing for the hardcopy).

Hey Adam. I have yet to unplug the charger when it reaches 80%. I usually plug in my battery before bed and unplug it in the morning. Actually, once I left it on the charger for two days by accident. When it reaches full charge, it goes in to idle/maintain mode. No worries - same deal as charging any battery.